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Congressional Ratings by Year  

Posted by Rob Barton in , ,

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With a couple of weeks left in the year I thought it would be good to look back at the congressional job approval numbers for the year, and how they compare to previous years.

The numbers I am presenting come from pollingreport.com. What I did was take the average difference between people who approved of the job congress was doing and those who dissapproved. This includes a large number of polls (80-90 a year) from a good number of sources, so the sample is large.

During the year 2005, the first year on the site, congress earned itself an average -24% approval rating. Twenty-four percent more people thought that congress was doing a bad job than a good one. In 2006, that number jumped to -33.1%. This swing ushered in the Democratic majority that we enjoy(gag!) today.

The beginning of 2007 showed the momentum that the democrats had. The first few months of 2007 showed approval ratings from the single digits into the lower twenties. By August of 2007, people realized what the dems were up to and the rating jumped as high as -58% and stayed between the high 30's to low 50's for the rest of the year. The average for 2007 ended up being -32.9%, a negligible gain for the year.

By 2008 the people showed exactly what they thought of their new congress. The average score was a -53.2% difference in the people who thought congress was doing well vs. doing poorly. That shows a 20.3% jump in congress' disapproval rating. Numerous scores above 60% since October show what must be an alarming trend for the dems. In 2009, it will all be on them. Can anyone say backlash in the 2010 elections? How about mandate? I say that we end up seeing both.